"033 (B015) - Murder Melody (1935-11) - Laurence Donovan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

Before Ham had finished speaking, Doc had recalled all the facts of the Caulkins-Cassalano Expedition into the Bering Sea. Each of the men named was famous in his line. Caulkins and Cassalano, Doc remembered, had recently been associated in the service of a South American republic.
News reports said the economist had been successful in establishing a governmental budgetary system of a new order. Cassalano had discovered valuable deposits of minerals that had added to the republic's financial security. Little had been published concerning their expedition into the north. It had been regarded as a vacation whim of the learned gentlemen.
"Probably this has nothing to do with the message," Doc replied to Ham's question. "But you have acted wisely in giving such aid as you can. Remember instructions. Watch the Aleutians."
"We will do that," came Ham's voice. "We had a considerable earthquake at Juneau last night. Shall we call as soon as we sight theЧ"
Ham's broadcast was abruptly interrupted. His voice wavered, as if the "scrambler" had suddenly been changed from the transmitter to the receiver. Before Doc could act, in an attempt to clear the transmission, Ham was speaking again excitedly.
"We see lights of steamshipЧone of the island peaks has lighted upЧlooks like volcanoЧbelieve there must be earthquakeЧthe ship is pitching badlyЧpart of island peak is now breaking offЧIt's one of AleutiansЧWait!"
Static crackled in the short-wave instrument. It was as if a roll of thunder had broken the invisible transmission. Ham's voice resumed in distorted words.
"Motors missingЧfalling in air pocketsЧlooks like part of peak splitting into seaЧRenny can't pull outЧour position isЧ"
Ham's speech ended in what seemed to be a distant crackling explosion.
Doc could hear only what undoubtedly was the S O S distress call of a ship.
Chapter 6. THE GIRL ON THE ICE
DOC SAVAGE closed the walls insulating his motors. His flaky gold eyes stirred in little whirlpools. Though he was alone, an eerie, exotic trilling filled the space of the amphibian cabin. It did not seem to emanate from the bronze man's lips. His mouth was unusually set in one firm line.
The trilling had no especial harmony. It was like the whistling of a low wind through the deep passages of some cavern.
The bronze man's concentration was intense. All of his five devoted companions were in perhaps the greatest peril of their many adventures together. Seldom did it happen that Doc was not in position to give immediate assistance to any of his men.
If he felt in the least perturbed, his calm action did not betray it.
With his motors shielded from possible interference, Doc climbed out and pushed the pontoon from the beach. Above him the propellers of special alloy were gleaming disks. The two constables on the ground had not stirred.
Perhaps no other man in the world could have moved the amphibian from its grounded location. When it was accomplished with one mighty heave of his shoulders, Doc waded out and swung into the cabin.
The Scotch inspector of Provincial Police was walking up and down his office and swearing wildly three minutes later. There was no other plane in the province that could be mistaken for Doc's. The inspector sent a police car hooting toward the beach near The Narrows.
DOC had kept in mind the voice of the Zoroman in the air. He knew, unbelievable as it seemed, the floating men were carrying Johnny and Monk over the high mountain barrier. And they were being guided in their flight by a radio beam. This class of ray, or wave, was common enough. It is used for the guidance of planes on their proper routes.
Doc switched on his directional radio finder. Instantly it was proved some unusual magnetic beam was coming from north of the mountains which formed the barrier between Vancouver and the wilderness beyond. It was much more than an ordinary beam.
The compass needles started playing queer pranks. The polar instrument seemed to lose its proper sense of direction. After weird swaying, the needle that should have maintained the correct north and south directions, remained pulled over.
The bronze man could tell this from the position of the brilliant North Star. This he sighted clearly in proper alignment with two lower stars of the Great Dipper. Doc, however, was following the mysterious beam.
He knew of only a few places in the world where physical composition of the earth deflected magnetic compasses. One of these was in the direction he was flying. But it was in Yukon Territory, much too distant to have been effective here.
In the Yukon, one great mountain had been named the Magnetic Mountain because of its highly sensitized elements.
With his directional finder holding the amphibian on the strange beam, Doc discovered he did not have to waste time gaining altitude to rise above the ragged peaks to the northward. His plane was being directed straight into the wide cleft of Capilano Canyon.
The bronze man had been pondering deeply. Glancing down into the abysmal darkness of the canyon cleft, the magnificent bronze head nodded slowly. It was thus he confirmed some of his own conclusions when alone.
Blasts of wind from side canyons tore at the wings of the plane. Only its streamlining prevented the amphibian being hurled from its course. The sheer walls of Capilano Canyon loomed higher. Doc discovered blind flying had become perilous. At any instant some jutting shoulder might trap a wing. The side sway of the wind currents could crash the ship into one of the cliffs.
Doc slipped a leather headgear over his sleek bronze hair. It much resembled a head guard worn by a football player. But what appeared to be clumsily constructed binoculars were attached. Before he pulled these over his eyes, Doc moved a switch in a half arc on the instrument board.
This switched on a searchlight set in the streamlined mounting of the plane. The human eye, unaided, would have seen nothing. The canyon darkness would have remained as opaque as ever. But now Doc was able to watch far ahead.
Each jagged corner of the canyon was clearly etched. The light shooting ahead of the plane was intensely brilliant, almost like the clear illumination of the sun. Every part of the canyon and peaks ahead appeared as photographs. They were without color, except those of a photographic negative of black and white.
The searchlight operated on a filament which produced a profusion of rays in infra-red wave bands. The lens was a filter which shut off all visible light, but which had the quality of passing the infra-red ray, invisible to the naked eye.
The clumsy appearing binoculars brought out the objects ahead as clearly as in some movie scene.
Doc flew by this illumination, invisible to others, for the purpose of preventing possible enemies ahead from detecting the coming of the plane. The motors themselves were silenced to the lowest possible vibration.
FOR the space of perhaps fifteen minutes after Doc had taken off from Burrard Inlet, the directional radio beam of mysterious origin remained steadily on. A few times Doc lost it in the curves of Capilano Canyon, but new swings picked it up again.
Miles up the canyon loomed two saw-edged peaks. Doc viewed them with startling distinctness by the infra-red ray. Now it seemed the directional beam was coming from between these.
Mountain distances are deceptive. Suddenly Doc's echo amplifier, which gave back the sound of the motors from vertical obstacles, warned him that he was too close to the peaks to attempt lifting the amphibian over them.
The plane zoomed from the final cleft of the canyon. Then the strange radio beam failed altogether. There was other evidence that the unusual magnetic force had been cut off. The compasses swung back to normal positions.
Doc banked the amphibian. Through the binoculars he sought for the most convenient outlet. The peaks looked as if they provided a trap. Each loomed more than a mile toward the starry sky. Between them ran a ragged line. Under the infra-red wave the space under this line suddenly glistened brilliantly.
A chill crept into the plane's cabin. Doc identified one of the great glaciers. The line between the peaks marked a spiny glacial wall. There seemed no alternative but to bank the plane and return through the canyon.
Suddenly the bronze man's attention was drawn to the apparently flatter space directly under the plane. He had pulled into a slowing spiral. What appeared to be a cylinder with pointed ends was partly upreared in a field of broken ice directly below. Doc's first glimpse proved it to be something more than a hundred feet long.
Holding the plane in a tight spiral, Doc whipped off the binocular goggles. He switched off the infra-red ray. Next he directed the high-powered landing light carried by the amphibian upon the mysterious object.
The bronze man had discovered that the material of which the weird-looking craft was composed did not respond to the infra-red waves.
The piercing beam of the landing light revealed a most remarkable fact. The illumination passed directly through the long cylinder. The mysterious craft was entirely transparent, or at least its outer walls were of a translucency which enabled the bronze man to see the darker, moving shadows of persons inside.
Intricate machinery of a darker composition showed in virtually half of the cylinder. The first passing of the plane's light indicated the craft might have been wrecked. A portion of one end seemingly had plowed into the ice. Fragmented slabs of the glacial field had reared up and fallen over.
AS Doc brought the plane around on the second spiral, there still was no evidence of movement that might be hostile to the amphibian. Yet he could see the figures inside the cylinder were moving about. He wondered then from what source he might expect attack.
If an effort was contemplated to bring down the plane, it was being unaccountably delayed. Had he wished merely to escape, Doc could have swung back into the gap of Capilano Canyon. The bronze man had no such idea.
He was convinced that Johnny and Monk were now prisoners. They undoubtedly were being held either within the glassy cylinder or by men who had come from it. Moreover, the bronze man now had confirmation of an earlier theory.
The plane's landing light swept the spiny wall of the glacial field between the peaks. Doc concentrated on discovering a possible landing spot. As he held the amphibian on its course, with one hand he swiftly equipped himself with several devices which might be needed for defense.
Doc decided his television receiver might reveal more of the interior of the glass cylinder. Perhaps the television broadcaster would be turned on, or the voice transmitter would be in service. He switched on his receiver. The window remained dark, but instantly a liquid voice cried out:
"Clark SavageЧClark Savage! Can't you hear me? Help quickly! I have one of your strange weapons. It has a circular metal filled with golden cylinders. How can I use it? Clark Savage, can't you hear me?"